[BinaryResult]

I have been a starcraft player for almost 2 decades now and I never really cared about the story or background to it. What I cared about is that it combines elements of some of my favorite strategy games into a single medium. I often say that it has elements of chess, poker and reaction based games like first person shooters.

It is like chess in that it is a game of strategy and board control, army movement, identifying what your opponent is planning and actively countering it, identifying weaknesses and exploiting them.

It is like poker in that is a game of imperfect information. Unlike chess I cannot ever see the entire board in starcraft, only the pieces I have scouted and as soon as my scout leaves that information is now outdated and assumptions have to be made about the actions of the opponent since I last had accurate information. Poker is similar in that you can never have 100% certainty of what your opponent may be holding, there is always that knowledge gap and great players can exploit it.

It is like first person shooters in that is it reaction based, the person who is able to more efficiently process the information they are receiving and make correct decisions about their course of action can execute faster and have an exponential return in terms of tipping the scales in their favor. This applies to many things such as base building, army building and micro mechanics during army engagement.

I've been a fan for so long precicely because these fine strategy details and forced decision making make an excellent filter between the good and the great, the great and the elite. Watching the elite play is comparable in my mind to watching chess grandmasters battle only in real time and not turn based where their perceived life is on the line and one slip up can cause instant death. It's that great adrenaline high, not the background story, that has kept me so engaged for so long.

[gknoy]

That's an interesting synergy, I think you're right. I think it explains a lot about why I do not do well at SC: I am poor at most of those other games, so a union of those seems especially daunting.